Today I bit the bullet. The radio power button in my 1997 Explorer has been driving me crazy. The darned thing wouldn't shut off. I would have to fight with it for a minute or two every time I drive it to try to get it to turn off, and today was my revenge. I got a radio from a 2002 and spent the afternoon putting it in (I took a vacation day as I was feeling LOUSY last night, coughing and hacking, but I feel better now, maybe it was just the need for sleep, who knows).
The radio fits in the stock enclosure fine, even though its full-height all the way to the rear, but the major hurdle was the harness. 1997 was the last year for the old-style 8-pin and 16-pin harness, and in 1998 Ford introduced a 16-pin and 20-pin harness, with another 8-pin for certain radios that supported a subwoofer (which the new one doesn't, and I don't have one anyway). I spent the afternoon putting together a harness adapter so I wouldn't have to hack my car harness apart.
The day seemed destined for failure, but I persevered and eventually succeeded, though it wasn't for lack of problems. I have the wiring diagrams for a 1997 Explorer and 2000 Expedition, and I double-checked with Internet sources for good measure. *Every* Internet source (and even the printing on the 1998 harness itself) disagreed with the 2000 speaker polarity so I assumed the book was wrong, and opinions appeared to be split on where the dimmer pin was on the 1997 -- pin 4 or pin 5. I made a call and picked pin 5. I lucked out; when I looked at my car I didn't even have a wire in pin 4, so that was okay.
The major gotcha was the amp-on wire. 1997 and earlier vehicles have external amps, and the radio puts out a +5V signal to turn the amp on. It's called a remote wire, it has a standard blue color, and every aftermarket radio has one. No amp-on, no sound! *However*, 1998 and newer radios don't have this, which the diagram bears out, and I can only presume that they have internal amps. So how do I turn the amp on???
I was never so glad to be a packrat. I dug into my Radio Shack parts box and pulled out a 5V regulator, wire, small perfboard, and my soldering kit. I used a new-in-the-cellophane dinosaur plastic 25-pin RS232 cable end for the enclosure. A little soldering and taping and I had my 12V-to-5V converter.
Lots of cutting, crimping, and taping, and I was nearly done, with one other hurdle. The 1997 harness I bought that plugs into my car was incomplete! It had pins for power, ground, speakers, etc., but nothing for the CD changer. A quick run to Pep Boys and I lucked out again. I couldn't find a 1997 harness, but I found a newer 1998 one where the pins inside were the same (or close enough). I cannibalized the 1998 harness to complete the 1997 one, had to play with the pins just a bit to get them all to plug into the car plug, but in the end everything would up being hooked up.
So it *is* possible, with some pain in the process. I didn't lose a single feature, I have a radio I can turn off now, and I gained in-dash CD to boot. The green LED's in the radio don't match my 1997 aqua LED dash, but I can live with that. I only wish I could have bought a complete adapter rather than make one myself!
I did the opposite thing: fit a 1996 explorer radio to a F-150 2001. Not very hard, since i added my own aftermarket amplifier (and saved 8 wires from the connector) and the 1996 have low volt preouts so i soldered a little and made my own rca outpots. The major problem was to retrofit that old 6 cd changer to the radio since there was no cable/harness avaible here so i went to made a custom one. It works. And yeah, the green tint in the radio is different from the dash ilumination
Congratulations sir, it sounds that you did a very good work even having a difficult time with the wires.
I thought i was the only obsessed guy with the factory looks on the Ford cars. Now i know there are others :D .....
Just FYI...if you want to get the old radio fixed:
http://home.comcast.net/~pacificaudiotech/
I had Trevor @ Pacific Audio redo the radio in my '98 Mountaineer. It had the infamous "cold solder" circuit board display failure, common in those years. It's been perfect ever since (2+ years). Think it only cost something like $60 with insured shipping back. He's the best and highly recommended by several Explorer/Ranger boards.
The amp is indeed built into the 1998-up radios. There is a power turn-on out from the radio to the subwoofer (in that small subwoofer harness) if the radio is subwoofer-capable. But you figured it all out anyway so that's cool. Nice job on that! For factory units the newer radios are really nice...very surprising the quality of sound and features that they have.